The True Detective (28 page)

“People do reform,” the detective says.

“He hasn’t sent either of them so much as a birthday card—for eight years!”

“That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have changed. It could be the reason he would change, if you see what I mean. Anyway, he has to stay on our list until we clear him. The problem is, we haven’t been able to locate him. We’re checking New Orleans right now, because the people in Maine—where he is still in arrears on the support payments—don’t have any idea where he is.”

“I can’t believe Eric isn’t okay,” his mother says.

The detective looks up at her, Matt notices.

Then he says, “At the same time we’re working to clear the man who offered Eric a ride. That is, it looks like he will be cleared because we’ve found someone who can verify his whereabouts for a part of Saturday night. And because, Matt, you’re certain he never did or said anything unusual when you’ve seen him around. We’ve also been informed of two or three other suspects, or other leads, we’re checking out. One is a report from two young girls who do not know Eric that they saw someone resembling him get into a car, with two men, on Market Street at about that time on Saturday night. We’ve also learned that a man was in the general area on Saturday afternoon attempting to buy child pornography, and that this person viewed a pornographic film about children. And right now—this is on your advice, Matt—authorities in Burlington, Vermont, are interviewing the members of a rock band which played at a beach club near York through Saturday night, on the chance, remote or not, that Eric might somehow have joined up with them or been taken on by them in some way. Another thing, the Coast
Guard is conducting a general search throughout Portsmouth Harbor, just in case Eric is stowing away there.”

Pausing here, lighting another cigarette, the man says, “None of those is real promising. We’re checking them out, but I’d be less than honest if I told you I thought they’d lead to anything. Which is another way of saying we don’t really have much, or anything substantial, to go on. So we need your help. I’ll say it again: People know things, even if they don’t know they know them.”

Pausing once more, the man says, “Which brings us just about up to date. A police cruiser is going to pick you up about six this evening, Mrs. Wells, to take you to a television studio in Portland. If I’m not there, someone else will be—although I’m going to try to make it myself. The idea will be for you to speak directly to the camera as if you’re talking to Eric. If someone is holding him, we want to be careful not to antagonize them or trigger something in them in some way. Since we know we can’t
predict
such a person’s behavior, our thought is to keep it strictly between yourself and Eric. ‘Eric, we miss you. We want you to come home.’ Anything like that will be enough. A number will be given for anyone to call who has something to report. At the same time, could you each have your lists of names ready by then, when the officer comes to pick you up?

“As for these lists, do them separately, and if you don’t know a person’s name just say, for example, the man at the candy counter at such and such a location. Or the assistant coach on the soccer team two years ago. The plumber who fixed the sink in January. Put down if the person ever gave Eric a ride anywhere. If he ever called or talked to him on the telephone. Anyone who ever gave Eric any kind of present or money, or even attention. And don’t worry, again, about putting down the names of your best friends, or relatives. We’ll be very careful, believe me.”

Matt has looked up and the detective, pausing, is glancing his way. Matt looks down again, blood rushing once more into his neck and face.

“Has Eric ever told you of anyone being fresh with him? Touching him, taking liberties? Suggesting things?”

“No,” his mother says.

“Matt?” the detective says.

“No,” Matt says, shaking his head, wondering why he feels so responsible, so guilty.

“Anyone offering him a ride?”

“Gee, no,” his mother says.

“I can’t think of anyone,” Matt says, more to the floor this time.

“If you do, put the person on your list,” the man says.

“He knows not to go with strangers,” his mother says.

“How does he know that, Mrs. Wells?”

“He just does. He’s not dumb.”

“Who would he regard as strangers?”

“He’d know,” his mother says. “I know he would.”

“Mrs. Wells, you know—I don’t know if it’s quite like that. A person offering Eric a ride wouldn’t necessarily be unusual, you see. Or a dirty old man. He could be an attractive, even an appealing person. Friendly. Intelligent.”

“Why would someone like that want to pick up a little boy?”

She really doesn’t know, Matt thinks, looking away. Nor does the detective say anything more to her on the subject. Rather, he says then, “Today’s paper will be out in about an hour. That may bring in something. And your appeal on TV tonight. We have hopes for that, too. One other thing. What about enemies? Have you ever had any problems—any bad blood with anyone?”

“There was the bank, when we lost our house,” his mother says. “There was some bad feeling there.”

“Oh, Mom,” Matt says. “My gosh.”

“It’s true, isn’t it?” she says.

“That’s not what he means,” Matt says. “My gosh, you sound like a broken record. That’s not what he means.” Matt is about to break into tears, without knowing why.

“What’s
wrong
with you?” his mother says.

“That’s all you ever talk about,” Matt says.

“Well, it had a lot to do with our lives,” she says. “A lot more than you’ll ever realize.”

Matt is looking down, trying not to cry. Nothing is said for a moment.

“What about personal enemies?” the detective says then. “Problems with anyone. Like at work? In school? Feuds with anyone? Neighbors? That kind of thing?”

Neither Matt nor his mother responds.

“About the foreclosure, Mrs. Wells,” the detective says then. “How would you see that as being connected with Eric?”

“I’m sure Matt is right,” she says. “I guess it’s just one of those things I’ll never get over. The bank—well, the bank was mean. They wouldn’t give us a chance. I mean they gave us ten extra days. After Warren left us three months in arrears to begin with. It just all came down all at once and the best I could do right off the bat was custodial work over in Somersworth—”

“Oh, Mom,” Matt says.

“Anyway, Eric has always said that when he grew up he was going to get us a house like the one we lost. Matt’s just tired of hearing about that other house.”

“I just don’t think it has anything to do with this,” Matt hears himself say, remaining close to tears.

“His teacher said Eric is shy,” Dulac says then. “How shy would you say he is?”

“He’s not so shy,” Matt says. “Not when you get to know him. He’s shy at school maybe. Or with grown-ups.”

“Okay, one other thing,” the detective says, “and then I’ll get you a ride back home. What about coaches or adults? Has there been anyone, in any role like that—coaches, scoutmasters, teachers—who has taken a particular interest in Eric?”

Matt and his mother both sit there. Neither responds.

“You know, Little League teams and clubs, things like that?” the detective says.

“He didn’t do stuff like that,” Matt says. “Neither of us did. Because—well, it cost a lot of money.”

Matt looks up then, and looks at the detective. The man offers the slightest expression, as if to say he understands. “I think it’s why he was shy in school, too,” Matt hears himself say. “The kids who aren’t shy are the ones who have a lot of money. It’s always like that.”

“Oh, Matt,” his mother says.

“That’s okay,” Dulac says, “I know what he means.”

“Kids whose fathers have good jobs get to do a lot of things that other kids don’t,” Matt says.

“Matt, my gosh, why are you saying these things?” his mother says.

“They’re true,” Matt says. “I’m saying them because they’re true.”

“I know what you’re saying, Matt,” Dulac says. “It’s okay, Mrs. Wells. I understand what Matt is saying.”

Matt has to look down then. Even so his eyes fill, and he feels taken in by the man and adopted, and only when another minute has passed, and his mother happens to be talking, is he able to look up and be himself again.

D
RIVING YET AGAIN
, V
ERNON HAS A HOLLOW FEELING IN HIS
heart. He thinks of the time, when he was twelve and they had just moved east from California, when he felt the same kind of hopelessness. His mother already had a boyfriend, who had taken them to a lakeside beach, and what happened left him so lost as a new child in a new world that for the first time in his life he had wanted to die.

He was in the water, while his mother and her boyfriend sat on a towel on the beach. He was not swimming, because he did not know how, and overweight at the time, was keeping all but his head underwater, to use his fingers on the bottom to pull himself around as if he were swimming. Slipping through the water crocodile fashion, among other children, mainly younger children, there occurred in him all at once a desire, or a capacity, to do to others something of what he had imagined doing with the two boys in his secret magazine.

Using his hands underwater to shift directions, he approached a boy sitting in the shallow, sudsy water with his legs in a V. Gripping the boy’s toes first, pushing to and fro like a tethered boat, a smile ready on his face and rubbing himself upon the sandy bottom, he reached underwater to caress the boy, to squeeze lightly a slight caterpillar between the boy’s legs, to say “What’s that?” only to have the boy shift away to play at another angle.

S
LIDING BACK AROUND
, he pulled up to a young girl, smiling at her and reaching in to touch and feel between her legs, too, feeling little more there than something like rubber but eliciting some flat-handed splashes from her. Sliding out in the water the length of his arms, and sliding back, he reached in once more to search for the center of the girl, or for the center of himself as he rode upon the sand and his senses thrilled, only, suddenly, sharply, to have the girl snatched out of the water, snatched into her own heart-stopping scream, and to look up into the face of a woman in a one-piece bathing suit, holding the girl, seeing her spit at him,
“You little shit, you keep your hands to yourself!”

A scene. The world stopped. Sound stopped. He wanted to melt. He wanted to withdraw into himself. He knew his mother was watching. He knew his mother was sitting next to her new boyfriend and, like everyone else, both were watching. He knew, too, that she would merely watch, that she would not come to him, and turning away, in his childlike stroke, pulling himself into somewhat deeper water, he wanted to slip in under the surface and never, as long as he lived, lift from the water or walk before the eyes of anyone, or ever be seen or spoken to again by his mother. He could not melt, though. Nor could he live forever within the water. Or die. And in time—however much time passed and however far along the beach he managed to move—he had to lift his overweight child’s body from the water, had to be seen, endlessly, as he circled, eyes down, and sat on a towel at his mother’s side, away from the man, sat with plum-colored lips, shivering, while his mother continued to talk to the man, sat until dusk without a word, for his mother was hiding, too, he knew, sat until the sun on the horizon could be looked at as directly as a lampshade and the beach was all but deserted, and his
mother addressed the subject for the first and last time, in saying to him as she stood and gathered things, “Are you coming?”

T
HE SAME HOPELESS
feeling is in Vernon now, driving the car next to the silent boy. Vernon glances at him. “It’s easy to call people names,” he says then. “Anyone can do that. It’s always done, though, by people who don’t understand. If they did understand, they wouldn’t do it. Simple people,” he adds, taking another glance at the boy slumped beside him, “have simple answers.”

Driving on, Vernon takes a longer look at the boy, fearing he has fallen unconscious again, With his right hand, keeping his eyes on the road, he reaches to find the boy’s hair, which is silky clean now in places. He moves his fingers gently over the boy’s forehead and down to his nose, and lets them pause upon his partially separated lips. There is the give and take of breathing, and its warmth, and Vernon wonders if he is bluffing. He returns his hand to the steering wheel. He drives along. “You are ruining my life,” he says then, while his voice and the lower part of his face tremble.

“Goddamn you!”
he cries.

There is no response and Vernon doesn’t cast a glance in the boy’s direction. Thinking clearly is difficult for him now, as new thoughts and images keep landing in his mind but take off before he can absorb them, only to be replaced by others. He is near Route 1A, south of Portsmouth—he had circled this way, he is telling himself, to return the boy home—and he is having thoughts, half-formed, of getting rid of the boy.

Vernon drives along, “I know you’re bluffing,” he says. “You think you’re so smart.” For the moment Vernon imagines the boy lying there as if asleep, plotting an escape.

At an intersection, taking the way to the ocean, an idea which he is thinking of as devious is taking shape in Vernon’s
mind. He will
let
him escape, he is thinking. That’s what he’ll do. He’ll let him get away, and then he’ll return to school, to his life and classes, and try to forget any of this ever happened.

Rolling along in silence for a moment, Vernon finally says, as if more to himself than anyone else, “I shouldn’t do it, but I have to stop along the beach here to make a call. Can I trust you? I guess I’ll have to, at least for a few minutes.”

Following the blacktop road over reaches of saltmarsh, he sees water and sky come into full view on one side. At this afternoon hour, under overcast skies, the water is a faintly muddy green, showing many small whitecaps lifting and disappearing, and Vernon feels soothed by them, or by the expanse. He turns into a public parking lot and pulls up facing the sky as much as the water. Two other cars are parked there. He turns off the motor. Saying nothing more, as if quietly, he slips from the car, closes the door, and steps up to the slight rise before the car, between wooden posts the size of fire hydrants, to look down upon the littered beach. He sees someone, to the left, running with a dog where the sand is wet. It is a man, in a blue jogging suit. Vernon imagines the boy peeking over the dashboard at the moment behind him. Well, he says to himself. Here’s your chance. I don’t ever want to see you again. You can go call someone else names.